Apple's Finally (Slowly) Giving Up on 16GB Phones

Forget fancy cameras in your iPhone, or iOS 10, or the lack of a headphone jack. The real thing to celebrate out of today’s iPhone 7 announcement is the end of the piddly 16 gigabyte iPhone. That dreaded “out of storage warning” will now be a thing of the past...at least until you load up your 32GB iPhone with millions of videos of your cat doing something cute.

The new iPhone 7 models will start at 32GB. Sure, Apple will still be selling older models at the 16GB entry point, but the company’s started down the road of slowly moving away from 16GB. An acknowledgement that for years this has been regressive and stupid.

Apple was the last major holdout on the 16GB front. Other smartphone makers with finite amounts of storage in their phones have long since moved onto larger pastures. Even phones with expandable storage, like those from LG and Samsung, left the 16GB storage option in the dust.

Apple held that tiny, overpriced hill all its own. Charging Apple iPhone 6s users a minimum £619 for the privilege of having a phone capable of storing no more than a year’s worth of apps and photographs. If you wanted to save cash you could spring for the cheaper 16GB iPhone SE. But still, a 16GB phone is total lunacy. Who would make such a thing?

Remember, this wasn’t even really 16GB. Your available storage dropped when all the required apps and operating system were crammed in, and it dropped further when you were forced to download a new OS update — which often consumed gigabytes of storage. Things got worse when you made the decision to add your own apps, many of which have seen their size balloon over the last few years. And then photos. How dare you take photos.

Like 8GB before it, 16GB just hasn’t been cutting it as a minimum size for an iPhone.

But now the 16GB iPhone is dead, and the 32GB iPhone has come to take its place as the entry point. Celebrate the death of the 16GB waste of cash by not making the same mistake many storage hungry iPhone users make. Splurge a little and get the bigger phone. You’ll appreciate it sooner than you think.